Power is the thing to plan around
Malawi's grid is unreliable enough that load shedding is a normal part of the week rather than an emergency. Interruptions of a few hours are routine, and they do not follow a schedule you can rely on.
This is entirely manageable, but only if your accommodation has solved it before you arrive. A standby generator handles the lights and the fridge. What catches people out is connectivity: the generator starts, but the WiFi router has already rebooted and your call has dropped. Ask specifically whether the router is on battery backup or a UPS. It is a small piece of equipment that makes the difference between a working day and a lost one.
Internet is better than most people expect
Fixed wireless and fibre in Lilongwe comfortably handle video calls, and mobile data on the main networks is a workable fallback. Buy a local SIM on arrival and keep data on it as a backup — when the fixed connection goes down, tethering will usually carry you through a meeting.
Upload speed, not download, is what determines whether your video calls hold up. If it matters to your work, ask the property what they actually get rather than what the package advertises.
The working day
Lilongwe runs on Central Africa Time, UTC+2. That puts you one hour ahead of London in winter and level with it in summer, two hours behind Dubai, and six or seven hours ahead of the US East Coast. European colleagues are easy. American colleagues mean late afternoons and evenings.
Traffic between the residential areas and Capital Hill or City Centre is light by regional standards, but it thickens noticeably at the start and end of the working day. Fifteen minutes at ten in the morning can be thirty at half past four.
Where to actually work
Café working culture is limited compared with Nairobi or Kampala, and the reliable options are few. Most people on longer assignments end up working from where they are staying, which makes the desk situation in your accommodation more important than it first appears.
A room with a desk and chair is not a luxury on a two-month assignment — it is the difference between working properly and working from a bed. If two of you are travelling together and taking calls at the same time, you need two rooms with desks, not a shared dining table.
Food and the rest of it
Supermarkets in Lilongwe stock most of what you need, and the produce markets are good and cheap. Access to a kitchen changes the economics of a long stay substantially — eating out twice a day for two months is both expensive and, fairly quickly, tiring.
None of this is difficult. It just rewards choosing accommodation on the basis of power, connectivity and a desk rather than on the photographs.